Back again

We had a lovely time at the Peat Inn last week - expensive, but it's a special treat and a bit of compensation for our wasted Golden Wedding Anniversary stay at the Old Course Hotel. Our room had two and a half levels - you enter in the middle and go down to the bedroom and en suite and up to the living room etc:

Dinner was lovely - 3 main courses but lots of little extras:

When we went back to the room after dinner, there's a small decanter of port - enough for 2 schooner glasses each - plus a plate of brownies. Breakfast in the morning is brought to your room - they lay it all out on the table in the living area - lovely:

They have a nice sheltered garden which would have been nice to sit in, but it was a little too cold for that. We had a little walk round it before leaving:

When we had arrived the previous day, we'd taken a walk along the beach and round the harbour, castle and cathedral area of St. Andrews:

Lunch that day had been in Waterstone's, Dundee where we went in hunt of suitable baby books.

On our return to Banchory, Jo joined her buddy Elizabeth for a swim at our local sports centre - the first since pre-pandemic. It wasn't entirely successful but they're going to try again this Friday at the Westill pool, which used to be their regular haunt.

Thursday was beautiful and it was our monthly golfer's beer day in a very sheltered garden - it was lovely. Briefly it felt like summer again.

We are no further forward with our replacement fence. One windy night a couple of weeks ago was more than enough to bring down another couple of panels and our neighbour's fence at the back of her garden finally fell completely flat. They're both long overdue for replacement but we can't seem to find a resolution with our neighbour.

The shared fence always falls in our direction so on Saturday I set about removing it:

Clearing this up plus scooping up all the dead leaves from the winter meant 3 seperate trips to the Waste Recycling centre. The sweat was rolling off me and I needed a complete change of clothes plus a bath afterwards. I started to feel a twinge in my right calf muscle which developed further the following day and soon I was struggling to walk - my calf was rigid and swollen. I'm now trying to give it the recommended RICE treatment - Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. It's improving but I've had to skip golf this afternoon and I don't know how I'll get on tomorrow on our planned walk round Blairgowrie with Barry, Helen and Dawn.

This Friday is another of our musical headbang evenings - and Ross arrives at midnight for a very brief visit - another of his pals' 40th birthdays.

Really good news is that Gary put in a bid for a house - and he got it! Entry's scheduled for early June (when we're away). https://www.aspc.co.uk/search/property/415322/53-Selbie-Drive/Inverurie/

Next Tuesday we're off to Dundee again - this time to the Caird Hall to see Walk Right Back - the Everly Brothers Story and on Thursday, I'm off to Dunblane to meet up with my old school pals again. Before all that, of course, we're in Perth tomorrow night with Barry, Helen and Dawn - looking forward to it.